2003-09-28 04:00:00 PDT Los Angeles -- The Academy Awards ceremonies have been good to Michael Caine, and not just because he's won two Oscars and been nominated for another four. Caine would also like to thank the Academy for his latest role as a shotgun-toting Texan in "Secondhand Lions."

"Lions" writer-director Tim McCanlies remembers seeing Caine and co-star Haley Joel Osment on television in 1999. Both were nominated for best supporting actor awards. "I was watching the red carpet arrivals and Michael walked up and met Haley for the first time," McCanlies says. "Michael is pretty tall, and Haley was just this little guy at the time, but they just seemed to get along famously. I got this odd premonition: 'Oh my God, this is my cast!' "

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SPOTTED AT THE OSCARS

Relaxing in a suite at a Beverly Hills hotel, Caine nudges his glasses a little higher on his nose and confirms McCanlies' prophecy. "Haley and I did bond at the Oscars," he says. "We became very good friends. I also got the 'Quiet American' from that, because the director Philip Noyce was watching and said, 'That's who I want to play the "Quiet American." ' I'm going to keep going to the Oscars. I don't care if I win. I'll just be there trying to get another movie from the walk-down."

Caine is not really wanting for work. He recently completed "The Statement, " a fact-based film in which he plays a French Nazi, and there's also talk about taking on Samuel Johnson's famous biographer in "Boswell." With more than 90 films to his credit since his breakthrough in "The Ipcress File" 38 years ago, Caine has essayed an astonishing range of characters. But the 70- year-old actor says he's rarely played nice guys.

In "Secondhand Lions," that all changes with Garth McCaan, who's retired from the French Foreign Legion with his equally gruff brother, Hub (Robert Duvall). They get a new lease on life when their 14-year old great-nephew Walter (Osment) and an exhausted circus lion drop in for an unexpected visit.

"This is the nicest, kindest picture I ever did in my life," Caine says. "These two old men have come back to die in Texas, yet they do these incredible things for the boy. They change him, and he changes them by convincing these brothers that they actually still have some use."

Even Shakira, Caine's wife of 30 years, enjoys this one, he says. "A lot of my movies are too tough for her, because I usually play terrible, morally corrupt people who are dirty rotten scoundrels, and my wife is a very gentle soul. But she wants to see 'Lions' again. It's a family film and you feel better having watched it."

It's unusual enough to sustain a career as long as Caine has, and still more remarkable that he rarely repeats himself. How has he managed to keep attracting such vivid roles long after most actors of his generation have faded from the scene?

'THIS IS YOU'

A complete lack of vanity helps, Caine says. "A lot of movie actors hold up a picture and say, 'Look at me, this is me and I'm going to show you what I do. ' Whereas I hold up a mirror and say 'This is you and you should recognize yourself in what I do.' I don't give off an air of, 'Here's this man who's so handsome, his body's so wonderful,' where Joe Chump is sitting in the audience,

saying, 'I could never be like that.' Everybody looks at me and says, 'I could be just like him.' "

By staying in the game, Caine, Duvall and a handful of other veteran actors have cornered the market on older characters who actually look their age. "A lot of actors who used to be big stars won't take the (pay) cut as they get older," Caine explains. "They won't take the smaller part, the character part. They still want to have the face lifts and hair dyed, and they've got to be the leading man and get the girl. I couldn't believe I got the girl in 'The Quiet American,' but I'm never going to get the girl again, unless it's Margaret Rutherford," he chortled, remembering the portly society dame who popped up in all the old Marx Brothers comedies.

Because Caine insinuates himself into his roles so seamlessly, one has to wonder which of his roles most resembles the man himself. "I haven't played anyone who's really like me as a person," Caine says. "I play facets of myself.

I suppose Harry Palmer in 'The Ipcress File' was very much like me at that time: salty, sarcastic, not easy to discipline, against authority. So Harry Palmer is the closest, but it's not me. I'm tougher than Harry."

GOOD OLD DAYS

Throughout "Secondhand Lions," Caine's Garth captivates young Walter with his yarns about the good old days, and in this arena, Caine himself has no peer. Over the course of a 45-minute conversation he recalls how he learned his Southern accent for "Hurry Sundown" from Vivien Leigh ("I figured, she should know -- she was in 'Gone With the Wind' "). Caine remembers taking a swig from what he thought was Shelly Winter's glass of water (it turned out to be straight vodka). Sir Michael -- he was knighted three years ago -- seamlessly name-drops the queen of England, the king of Greece and the president of Russia as players in his anecdotal flow.

"The things I have in common with the 'Lion' guy is, like Garth, I'm a gardener, I have a way with kids, and I'm a storyteller," Caine says. And the stories just keep coming.